


Learn to Breathe

by butthulu, D4gm4rs, thescyfychannel



Series: Four Steps Closer [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Choking, Double Crossing, Embedded Images, Fighting, For The Revolution, Multi, Rebellionstuck, Revolutionaries, Sparring, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-20 15:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17625077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butthulu/pseuds/butthulu, https://archiveofourown.org/users/D4gm4rs/pseuds/D4gm4rs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: One downside to a lack of nightly socialization and time spent in the deeps is the effect it'll have on your appearance for the next few molts.Feferi Peixes is all too familiar with this supposed "downside"—her Ancestor's decided to make use of it. After all, if everyoneassumesyou kill off all your heiresses, a living one that looks like something out of an ancient legend makes for a useful assassin and spy, right? Who the hell would believe that?Unfortunately, it looks like she's about to find out.





	1. Capture

**Author's Note:**

> with SERIOUS thanks to endeofblood, for stepping in to beta this hot mess

**TAKE TEN PART ONE: FEFERI**

 

_loyalty to the empire, above all else_

_loyalty to the empire, above your own self_

_loyalty to your empress, the blood that fills your veins_

_loyalty to your linemates, loyalty to your name_

 

* * *

 

These are the moments in which you count your blessings.

 

Blessing One: No matter what side of the war someone is on—and only fools ever believe there to be just two sides—a Tyrian is worth something. A Tyrian is valuable. Even one that might seem feral.

Blessing Two: Your Ancestor's mandate, that you swim the deeps, guard that part of the realm, listen for the whispers of dissent and dissolve any alliances that the deepest tribes might seek to form with that goal in mind, has isolated you from almost all contact with other trolls.

Blessing Three: That lack of contact means that your most recent molt has given you almost the exact appearance of a feral.

Blessing Four: You are very glad that it wasn't your adulthood molt, and that you are _not_ stuck like this permanently.

Blessing Five: Your captors, these landdwellers, don't know a fucking _thing_ about seadwellers.

 

* * *

 

The cages of the rebellion—the Second Signless' rebellion, from what you'd managed to glean after a day and night of quiet listening, punctuated only by your own growls and snarls in reaction to their overtures—are somewhat more hospitable than what you're used to. Even if they don't know shit about feral seadwellers, you're having to amend your fifth blessing: they do know how to keep a seadweller fed.

You might be tempted to add a sixth, if they continue this trend of assuming you don't understand proper Alternian. It's as if your Ancestor sent you into the deeps to hunt for a caegar, only to turn up a sunken ship's ransom. This, this…this utter  _foolishness_ , the existence of an extant descendant of that heretic, the Sufferer, it's more than any of you could have imagined.

 

It's more than you'd ever _wanted_ to imagine, so convinced have you been of the Empress' might.

 

Footsteps that you have quickly learned to recognize—heavy, determined—stop in front of your cage, and they're followed by an overspilling of electricity that coats your fins and floods your senses for a moment, until you adjust to it. You whine, backing away from the bars, and your dark vision picks up a sharp frown from both of them.

"How soon did he say he'd be here?"

You don't let your fins prick more than the standard sudden-noise, interest-caught movement, curling up in the nest you've made, but your attention's still locked on them.

"As soon as possible, which probably means tomorrow evening, based on his average speed, standard track record, and general douchebaggery."

The Second Signless rolls his eyes and elbows the Helmsman's get in the side. "Come on. At least _pretend_ to play nice for a couple of hours, okay? Then you can get back to your weird pitch flirtations, and I won't even say _anything_."

"How dare you insinuate that my absolute disdain for that finned prick is anything but one hundred percent farm grown platonic."

It pulls a laugh out of the Second Signless, a noise that runs ripples down your spine and has your backfin flaring out. Hm. You don't like that.

You like it even _less_ when that flare pulls their attention to you, staring at you, as your claws curl into the blankets. "—is. Is that standard? What does that mean?"

Tall, lanky, and awkward, he squints at you, but you can see the faint yellow on his skin, brightest over his ears. "You know him as well as I do. What does it mean on _him_?"

"You know perfectly fucking well what it means on him and I am not repeating that shit in the open air. She's a _feral_ , C—soldier, you know that, I know that, and we _both_ know we're not equipped to handle her." He ends this declaration with a baring of his fangs, and you mentally applaud him on catching himself before giving away an operational secret. Really, it's a pity that his subordinates aren't half so well trained. Sucks to be Karkat Vantas and Sollux Captor in a time of worry and warfare, apparently.

"Well," Sollux Captor drawls, and you try not to notice the way it makes your fins flare out again when he does—especially when it's coupled with the look in his solidly red and blue eyes—as he keeps his eyes on you, directing his comments towards Karkat. "I know _you're_ not equipped to handle her. I, on the other hand—"

"Don't even fucking think about it," Karkat Vantas says, and it's a kind of deadly calm that cuts deep into your bones. You know that sort of tone, even if you don't know the man it's coming from, and he raises himself up in your estimation a few notches. Captor might be a fucking powerhouse, but Vantas is a commander, hatched and bred.

 

You're almost looking forward to seeing what else he has in store.

 

* * *

 

When they leave you to interminable boredom once more, you start mulling over all they'd said and done. Someone was mentioned, someone who seems to be their expert in seaborn, and you're admittedly just a _bit_ curious to find out who or what they'd gotten onboard their ill-advised little escapade.

Smart caegars were on some brineblood a scant step above purple, desperate to do anything to improve their rank. Perhaps a quadrant they'd dragged into this idiocy, perhaps someone they'd managed to blackmail. You'd seen every possible option, every combination—however improbable—of stupidity, during your tenure as your Ancestor's eyes on the deeps. You wouldn't put it past them to have dreamed up some new tactics, sure, warmbloods were all about the innovation, but once the novelty wore off it would read as a tired remix of the same old songs.

And you were okay with that.

It would give you an easy framework for dismantling them from the ground up, if you didn't throw their entire system into chaos when you eventually escaped, or gave in to temptation and cut your way out in a bloody swathe. You'd prefer the former, but sometimes the latter just…happened.

 

Your Ancestor didn't really mind. She liked the rumors that she had a beast lurking in the depths.

Now you're starting to wonder what rumors these sky-touched creatures might have heard.

 

Your food comes on time, even though they seem to have sorted out what your flaring fins meant. The realization that they must be _close_ to a seadweller in some quadrantal sense, not merely working and flirting with one, is enough to axe a few of your theories. There weren't enough purples or blues in the know to sell such secrets, which meant they _had_ to have another seadweller on their side, and the reactions that they recognized were…difficult to fake, or to bring out in bad circumstances. More likely that your earlier speculations were true: one of them—Vantas, most likely—was in some long-term romance with some idiot who'd been lovingly coaxed aboard to die for their cause.

Any flicker of sympathy you might feel for the poor bastard, who'd likely been tricked and betrayed by their own quads, is ruthlessly quashed. You have a mission, and your own softer tendencies can't interfere. Not ever again.

 

You've already learned all your lessons.

 

* * *

 

A few more nights of waiting pass, and then one of their soldiers comes back to let you out. This one's another psionic, you can easily tell that much, but she seems in a different category than Captor. You can't put a finger on it, but then, you can't put a finger on _anything_ when she picks you up with her power and heads off down some different corridor.

"They've said you can't understand me, but I'm sure talking won't hurt! Living trolls need moonlight and fresh air, even feral ones, so we're getting you outside for a little bit. Nowhere near the ocean, sorry! But you'll get to swim in a saltwater pool if you want to!" She's unbearably perky, and you'd dislike it if it wasn't kind of…well, cute.

That's not something you can think about right now, though—whatever adorable warmbloods might or might not be floating you around through the halls—and probably not even later on. For you to come out ahead, the way you need to, everyone in this base is going to have to go down.

 

You only feel a little guilty about it.

 

Outside, your suspicions about their seadweller assistance are completely confirmed. The saltwater pool that you immediately dive for, once you're released from her psionics, has the feeling of at least one other frequent visitor, and you can tell, based on the traces (of skin, of scent, the occasional splash of blood) left behind, that more than a handful of seadwellers have passed through it. Captives, maybe? You're not sure. Whoever's in charge had the pool cleaned fairly recently, set to your preferred temperature and salinity, and filtered in a way that almost makes it feel like a proper ocean. You're left wondering, once more, exactly _how_ much they know about seadweller abilities and physiology.

You're not wondering about how closely you're being watched: from the moment your feet touched down on grass, you could feel those eyes on you, and you'd decided to give them a properly feral show.

Happy clicks and trills spill out of you easily, as you twist and dive deeper in the pool. The bottom is littered with pretty shells and shiny objects, and you amuse yourself for a time, diving for the nicest ones, scooping them up and setting them on the side of the pool. Even if they do have a seadweller on their side, you're not that worried. Your last molt left you looking feral enough to be completely mistaken for one, unless they've gotten someone who knows seadweller systems down to the very last line, along with how to read _your_ body language personally.

 

After your third such descent and ascent, that someone is waiting for you at the side of the pool. Your eyes go wide, and your fins flare out, and you immediately start looking for a clear path of escape.

"Why, Feferi Peixes," says Eridan Ampora, your one past mistake, your old lesson learned, the last instance of your softer tendencies ever being publicly revealed, smirking as he looks down on you, "as I _live_ and _breathe_."

You shove yourself out of the pool and bolt.

 

* * *

 

You don't make it. Of course you don't make it; they have _Eridan Ampora_ on their side, Vantas is a born commander, Captor's a psionic powerhouse, and he's apparently _not_ the only one on their side. Before you can get any further than the edge of the courtyard, before you can do more than curl your fingers into the uniform of one of the rebels who had flooded out into the open space at some unseen command, you're lifted up by that his red-blue sparkling light.

This time, the psionics wrapped around you _hurt_.

"Gentle, Sol," Eridan says, and Vantas hisses.

"Listen, even if she's a feral, I'd rather she _not_ know our names, understood—" You're a little surprised that he's more upset about the names than Eridan trying to get you slightly better treatment.

"Oh, she knows 'em. Guarantee it. If someone's slipped and said somethin', if you've even _hinted_ at the nicknames, she knows." Eridan's smirk is gone. He's replaced it with a completely blank expression, Imperial Standard, absolutely unreadable. You try not to let that cut as deep as it does, but it's harder than you'd like, after everything you'd been through. "I can tell you now she's not a feral, though. Been deepside so long that she's got the _look_ of one, sure, but there's nothin' feral about her."

 

Of course, he should be required to amend that when you try to take a piece out of him, the second he gets too close. Instead, he looks amused, smirking as your jaws snap shut around nothing but air—he’d yanked out of your psionics-limited reach that quickly. You fucking hate him. You completely and utterly despise him. Bastard.

There's something like betrayal in Vantas' eyes—you mentally add him to the heroic knight type category, looking for people to save—but Captor's expression is just as blank as Eridan's is. "So what is she, then?"

"The monster in the deeps. Her Ancestor's spy and soldier. A blank slate meant to be written on in tyrian ink. Empty, soulless—I mean, I could go on, but it gets repetitive an' edgy as fuck, so stop me when you're bored."

 

It's nothing you haven't heard before. It's nothing you haven't _said_ before, hells, you were the one who gave him that litany of depression and edgelord-tier woe, but hearing it thrown back in your face here and now, with none of the caring you saw in him that first time—it actually hurts.

Instead of thinking about that, instead of trying to choke down the pain that the sheer indifference in his eyes brings on, you focus on the third member of the trio, the easiest one to play to: Karkat Vantas.

He looks like he's still working his way through a flood of different emotions, so you take a breath and pray to whatever gods will have you. "I'm not going to challenge what he says."

 

Judging by their reactions, your voice is a shock to everyone involved. Eridan freezes up, and you store that away for later. Captor's sparks flare and die, and you wince, letting the pain and fear you're actually feeling seep to the surface and _show_. The biggest difference is in Vantas, though—he actually _softens_ , somewhat, and takes another step closer towards you, despite Captor's hissed warning, and Eridan's attempt to block him first.

"Kar, you can't risk that shit, she's dangerous—"

Vantas bares his fangs at Eridan, as much in challenge as in reply. "She's in pain, and she's scared, that much is fucking obvious. Dangerous, fine, but I'm not going to let us turn into what we're fighting against, you pompous raging asshole."

"See this is why we place bets on him getting killed," Captor mutters, and you nearly snort. Really, you can't blame them. This guy's a fucking sap.

"Feferi," he says, and—okay, you would be lying if you said there wasn't something about the caring in his voice when he says your name. You can understand how Eridan got sucked in so easily now, but you're not going to let it get to you. "Feferi, can you tell us what you were doing in our waters?"

"They're the Condesce's waters," you mutter, looking away. It's what they _expect_ from you at this juncture; you know how to play the game. "I didn't _know_ you were there, though. I would've stayed away if I'd known."

"And you actually expect us to believe that, huh? Because you never seemed to hesitate to track down any _rebels_ before—"

Karkat makes a noise, and Eridan's attention snaps to him. You won't complain, it means he's not leaning into your space in such a challenge that you can _feel_ yourself trying to rise to it. "You're not helping, Ampora."

"Think whatever you want. I said I would've stayed away if I'd known, and I meant it." The fact that it's not a lie helps: if you'd known about them, if you'd known about _Eridan_ , you would've informed )(er Imperious Condescension and swam in the opposite direction as fast as you fucking could have.

Some of your sincerity seems to land, because Eridan looks just a bit rattled good. "That don't mean shit, comin' from you, Peixes."

You do not care what this jumped up guppy thinks of you. He is throwing all of his Ancestor's hard work down the drain, all of the training and care and whatnot he'd told you about, and you _do not care._

 

But Vantas seems to.

 

"Okay, instead of whipping it out for a bulge measuring competition, how about we come back to the issue when we've all had a chance to _calm the fuck down_."

"Oh, that's rich comin' from you, Kar—"

"Hey." That's the psionic again, Captor, and you blink at him. If you're being honest, you're probably most afraid of him, as compared to all the others. Eridan probably has the most information on you, Karkat's got all of that ability to emotionally manipulate people, even unknowingly so, but Captor's a veritable powerhouse, and you know as well as Eridan does that psionics are the natural predators of seadwellers. "If I may."

"Floor's yours, Captor," Eridan says, with no small amount of bad grace.

But Captor nods, and you wonder at this: at how well the psionic can curve his emotions down, keep himself under control when the situation calls for it. For a moment, you are even more afraid. "Whatever her deal is, she's bound to have information we don't have, or know shit we might need. If we keep her here and…find out what she knows, then we're ahead of the game, whatever side she's on or motivations she might have." The vague allusion to torture doesn't bother you, but his reluctance to actually say the word is interesting. "More than that, we can find out what she knows about _us_."

"You're not wrong," says Karkat, slowly. "What do you say, Feferi? Will you cooperate willingly with us?"

 

You hesitate: you're _expected_ to hesitate, and you're not one to deny the audience you've been forced into performing for. "I don't know. If my Ancestor finds out, I—it would be easier if you culled me. I would prefer that, please—"

He actually looks pained, and your respect for Captor's ability to keep this kid alive grows exponentially. "Well fuck. I mean, all reports point towards your Ancestor being a twisted bitch, but—"

 

"You know she's playin' you, right?" But Karkat ignores Eridan's grumble, and takes another step closer to you.

When you try to flinch back, he holds steady, and when you relax enough, still in Captor's hold, to let him near, he reaches up and cups your cheek.

Instantly, your fins cant down, and you're left wondering what the _fuck_ is wrong with you. "Hey. Hey, it's okay. Shit, we've kept ourselves safe this long, what's one more seadweller, right? If you help us, we'll protect you. What do you say?"

"I'm scared," falls out of you, immediately, and you hate yourself for it, hate the fact that it's true, hate the way you can see pity spark in even _Eridan's_ eyes. "I—I mean, I didn't mean to say that, I—"

 

"Work with us, Feferi."

Whatever the hell kind of power this mutant has, you can see why your Ancestor wanted him and his entire line dead. You can see why psionics and seaborns alike would swear to him. And so you do exactly what they expect you to do, again: "I will."

After all, if everything works out the way it's supposed to, you won't even have to see their eyes when they realize you've been betraying them all along.

 

* * *

 

You're brought inside again, and it's not that your treatment is any better than it was before, but at least now they've seemed to realize that you actually have a brain beyond what they thought. Ferals aren't considered to be particularly clever, beyond the basics of survival and necessity, and now that they've picked up on where you're at, your "enrichment" covers something far more intellectually stimulating.

 

That is to say, basic friendly interrogation.

And not that you're going to bring it up at their bi-perigee grievance meeting, but they at _least_ could have let you keep some of what you'd fished up from their little pond.

 

Someone gets you clothing, thankfully nondescript, and you mentally murmur some gratitude to whatever gods might be looking out for you that they're not planning to dress you in their uprising’s colors. Then again—they might not care to have _you_ , of all people, looking like a rebel. You've got a feeling Eridan and Captor are off somewhere debating the cost/benefit of either option, as Vantas slowly tries to crack you.

Let them. You've got better things to do.

 

"Are those comfortable?" Vantas keeps his voice calm and steady, his hands visible on the table, folded together, the very picture of unthreatening. "Your new clothes, I mean."

"They're fine, thanks," you say, and let your fins tilt back. Harmless, but scared. It's a look you've learned to wear very well, and you hate the fact that it sort of suits you. "What are you hoping to get out of me?"

"If I told you I was hoping to get to know you, it wouldn't be strictly the truth, even if it wouldn't necessarily be lying." He gives you a little grin, like he's inviting you to share the joke, but when your shoulders draw closer in, he drops it with only a hint of a frown. "Obviously we need information, but I _am_ hoping to get to know you, and to find out if there's anything that we can do to help better your situation. I know that might not seem like the truth, coming from a rebel leader, but I'm sure you can understand why it's in my best interest to treat you well."

"Happy soldiers are less likely to rebel, more likely to be helpful, and generally—generally not the type to betray someone to the Empire," you say, and nearly wince at the sing-song ring of rote memorization. "But that doesn’t apply to a spy."

Vantas shakes his head, still frowning gently. Damn is he playing up the good trollcop angle here. "We don’t do things the same way that the Empire does, even for spies. Okay?"

"Sure," you say, but you cant your fins down in a way that makes it _clear_ you don't believe him. The distress that rolls off of him gives you the clearest sense of victory you've felt since you resurfaced from that little saltwater pool to find Eridan fuckin' Ampora staring down at you. "Look, I get that you're…trying to be nice, but. I don't think it's gonna work, okay? Even if I tell you everything, even if I _swear_ it's the truth, E—Ampora won't trust a word I say. None of you have a reason to. I could spend ages trying to prove I want to help, and it wouldn't do _shit_ , given the fact that whatever proof I try to give would have to be absolutely ironclad, which would take time and effort to test, which—I mean, the longer I'm _here_ , the less useful whatever intel I have is. Even if I gave everything I knew up right _now_ , I'd pay for it later when the Condesce—"

You cut yourself off, as if you hadn't _meant_ to babble like that, and his expression looks like he'd like to slug someone in the face. Good. "I'm trying to get to know you now to prevent something like that from happening, Feferi."

"Thanks, but it won't help." It's like you've slapped him in the face.

"What?"

 

Instead of backing down again, you shake your head, flaring your fins out. "It won't help, I'm telling you, I've BEEN telling you! Even if you get to know me. Even if you pull all of it off. Even if you send me somewhere so, so safe, that _you're_ sure the Condesce will never find me, it won't. She'll find me, or someone'll hand me over, because no matter what you're offering, no matter where I go, no matter _what_ kind of place this is—and trust me, I have heard _every_ story in the book—people will _always_ see my hue before anything else, and nothing else will matter to them at all, not even what I do, or that I might want to help, or—"

You're not choking up, you're _not_ , but Karkat tries reaching a hand out to you anyway. "Feferi—"

"No." You yank away. "I mean, hah. Look at Ampora, if you want to see how things turn out when I fall for it. When I try to—try to be a little less Tyrian. A little less soldier, and a little more troll." As tempting as it is to grind this in further, you _want_ him to try and coax you over. No sense cutting him off at the knees _just_ yet.

It's hard not to follow your instincts, though. Hard when the pitying look in his eyes makes you burn with twenty kinds of loathing, self and otherwise.

"Feferi," he says, and that same feeling you'd gotten in the cell what feels like sweeps ago rushes down your spine. This time, he watches the way your backfin flares out, stretching the thin fabric of the outfit they'd given you. "Please."

"Please _what_ ," you snap, and watch the way the pity flares up even higher in his eyes.

"Give me a chance to change that for you. Let me prove to you that you wouldn't be fighting alone, that we wouldn't—that _I_ wouldn't—leave you to do that." You're not sure he knows that he's halfway across the table, his hands braced on hard metal that looks like it was carved straight into the sturdiest form someone could find. Part of you wonders if somehow, some way, that was more for his benefit than yours—then he's talking again, and you're back to wondering if the Empress had always known mutants were dangerous because she'd heard one speak herself. "You said that no one would trust you. If you give me a reason to trust you, then I will personally fight for you, I will not fucking rest until I have proven your loyalty to each troll in the rebellion. I don’t give a shit what you were, the only thing I care about right now? It’s who you’re _going_ to be."

Your fins cant down and back. It's a good deal, far better than you expected, and you think he knows what kind of gift he's just handed you—if you weren't a known spy, it would be a sure sign of his honest effort at caring, but you are, and the fact that he's willing to risk such a thing, even without knowing the full details of the circumstances at hand…

Well. That's something you're really going to have to sort out later.

Then you hear yourself ask, in a traitorously thin voice, in a way you haven't heard yourself speak in sweeps: "What about Eridan?"

 

But when Karkat's expression falls, you know you've landed a kind of emotional checkmate that will shift the balance of power between you just enough to make this work.

"I—I can't promise anything," he hedges, and you drop your head down, letting your fins tuck back.

"Of course," you say, quiet and soft. "I understand."

Five. Four. Three. Two—

"What—if you don't mind me asking, which, I suppose, goes against the point of an interrogation, but _still_ —what happened between the two of you?" His curiosity overwhelms him even faster than you thought it would, and you tilt your head down even further before you begin.

"It was a long time ago," you start, your curls in your eyes, hiding your expression. "I—I don't really like to talk about it, but if this is part of the interrogation—"

Behind your locks and lashes, you can see him debating through this particular moral quandary: does he let you go on this one? Does he take advantage of the situation?

"But I suppose I'm, trying to prove myself, right?" You give a shaky little laugh, and manage not to gloat over the look of relief he's wearing. "I was on a mission, from my Ancestor. A traitorous group had captured Dualscar's heir, and she wanted them...eliminated."

When you stop there, Karkat nods, and carefully picks your hand up. You allow it, this time, and he prompts you gently. "Eridan once said that you saved his life." At your nod, he continues on. "Was that when you rescued him?"

"No," you say, and you hear the roar of the sea on all sides of a high-cliffed hideout, crashing against rocks hard enough to shake some of them loose. "No, that was after."

"...what do you mean, after?"

The sea carries you away, back to that day and subsequent night. "She had told me it wasn't a problem if I failed to save the heir. If something happened to him that I couldn't stop, it would be...fine." You see his eyes, barely tinting violet at that point, scared, even as he tried to hide it. "What she meant was that she wanted him to have an accident. I knew what she meant. What she wanted. And she knew that I knew."

Karkat's voice is surprisingly gentle, quiet and soft, as he prompts your memories along. "But you didn't obey."

"No. I couldn't. He actually spoke to me like I was...a troll. Someone. Not a tool, not a thing. So I couldn't do it."

"What happened?"

But you shake your head—even this deep in your memories, you can't tell him that. Can't tell him how you'd let them capture you too, how they'd thrown you in the same cell as Eridan to see what would happen, how he'd patched up the cuts you hadn't let heal, brushed your hair back from your eyes and checked them for any signs of concussion—how you'd curled up together that day, how he'd growled at the trolls who came near, like he was going to protect you, like you weren't born and bred to be a deeps damned killing machine.

How he hadn't turned away even when you were covered in the blood of the first troll you'd ripped through. The first troll that had taken his threats a little too seriously and tried to lay a hand on him.

You look at Karkat, seemingly endless patience and calm, as he tries to build a bond with you, and all you can see is Eridan, trusting, taking your hand as you dragged him through the base, calling out threats and taking a few of them on, and the way he took your hand again each time, no matter what blood coated it, no matter what paint spattered over your skin and face.

"I got him out," you offer. "We dove over the cliffs into the sea—he trusted me not to reef us—and I swam him as far away from there as I could, as fast as I was able."

"He's a pretty good swimmer," Karkat says, offering nothing else. "He couldn't manage it on his own?"

"I was faster, and they hadn't—they hadn't hurt me, or underfed me, yet." You remember going for spines and eyes. You remember giving injuries that were a surefire death, but a slow one. You remember being furious that they'd dared to hurt him.

"What then? You got him out of there?"

The sea had wrapped around the two of you, a silent benediction, a cool blessing, and you'd cut through the water faster than any ship could, Eridan held tight in your arms as you healed him, little by little. When you'd finally arrived at his Ancestor's coastal house, he'd almost looked healthy.

"I took him back to Dualscar. The Orphaner. He had a house on the seaside, a pretty little place, by seaborn standards, I suppose. It was huge, but the Empress had called it 'small'. Technically, they’re meant to be partners, like the legends say, but—she doesn’t trust him, she wanted to teach him a lesson without making what she was doing obvious.” Another breath (your head breaking surface, Eridan’s dark curls damped down), and you continue, revealing secrets you care to keep the way the ocean cares to keep any one grain of its ever-changing sand sand: “She'd told me to—to take the body there. So I took Eridan there, and Dualscar was there, and...he thanked me."

Karkat looks actually startled for a second—then he masters his expression, and nods at you. "You met the Orphaner Dualscar?"

"Yes. He had towels, and a medical kit, and he hauled us both off to get cleaned up before I could stop him or run, I—I think he'd sent the servants away." You do not add that you think your Ancestor sent you there to die, with a dead boy's body in your arms. "He made us breakfast, then sent Eridan to get some sleep—I swam all the rest of the day, so it was kind of, early, or late, I guess—and thanked me again."

"You keep coming back to that. Not something you’re used to, is it?" You're wondering, just a little bit, if Karkat's an idiot.

"Of course they don't. I _kill_ most people who see me, and the rest aren't supposed to know I exist. The Condesce duels all of )(er )(eiresses and _wins,_ something everyone knows, which means I make a perfect assassin. Tool. Weapon. No one expects _me_. I’m like a mythical creature to them, and to )(er—my Ancestor doesn't thank people." He looks like he's about to say something, so you shake your head and keep talking. "He showed me to a room where I could sleep, and I waited until he'd headed off to sneak out, but by that point, Eridan had already planned to sneak in, and, I—"

"You stayed up even longer to talk to him," Karkat says, and you nod. "What happened after that?"

"I waited until he fell asleep in my recuperacoon, and—and I snuck out."

He frowns. "Feferi, I'd really prefer it if you not lie to me about what happened."

Fuck. Eridan must have given him the basic outline. "Fine, okay. I fell asleep with him again, and when I woke up, it was daytime."

"Thank you, and I'm sorry I'm pressuring you like this," he says, frown replaced with a smile, and you mentally note down that he nearly sounds sincere.

"It's an interrogation, Vantas, you really need to work on your skills." Your fins flick, and you take a deep breath. "There was more food, so I ate some, and got cleaned, got dressed, headed for the exit, but—but, well, Eridan was waiting there."

"Ah."

Your fins tip downwards, now, and one of your hands curls into a fist in your lap. "He asked me to stay. I don't want to talk about it any more than that."

From the look in Karkat's eyes, you know that he knows there's more to the story, but he doesn't press you any further, and you're grateful that he's giving you that much. "May I ask why you said no? I'm assuming you know your Ancestor basically sent you on a suicide mission, here, you're a very intelligent troll."

"It's not any of your business," you snap, and your fins cant back when his eyes go wide. "Sorry. No. I know. Interrogation. I—well, I—"

He squeezes your hand; you'd forgotten he held it at all. "Breathe, Feferi. If you can't answer, it's okay, I promise. You're not in any trouble, and you're not going to be in any trouble. Okay?"

"I didn't think they could protect me. Him and Dualscar. They'd both offered—promised, even—but I didn't think they could." Your fins are flicking through all the distress signals you know, but your mouth isn't picking them up; your mouth can't remember how to shut up. "I didn't think they should have to. I didn't think they deserved to have their lives ruined for me."

There's something caring, concerned, and yet—all at once—strangely _triumphant_ in Karkat's eyes. You file everything away to pick apart later, and do your best not to gloat over the fact that he'd completely taken the bait you'd offered, that he hadn't even delved any deeper into the other questions you truly feared. "Thank you, Feferi. I'll have more questions for you later, but for now, I'm going to ask Sollux to take you to your new room, okay?"

"...I get a room?" Even as you say it, you know it's going to be devastatingly effective, but you can't stop yourself from wincing. You hadn't meant to come off as quite that pitiful, pitiable, but—

Well.

You'd never had your own room before.

 

Karkat looks like he'd like to challenge the Empress to a death duel right there and then. "We don't really have much in the way of decorative shit, but I'm sure we can come up with something. Make it feel a little more like home."

"No, that—that's okay. Don't worry about it. Please."

The door swings open, and you stand up from the table, knowing that it's all he's going to be able to think about the rest of the night.

Really, it's so easy that you almost feel bad doing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _You like it even_ less _when that flare pulls their attention to you, staring at you, as your claws curl into the blankets..._  
>  \- Art by D4gm4rs
> 
>  
> 
>  _Eridan Ampora, your one past mistake, your old lesson learned, the last instance of your softer tendencies ever being publicly revealed, smirking as he looks down on you..._  
>  \- Art by butthulu
> 
>  
> 
>  _...when you relax enough, still in Captor's hold, to let him near, he reaches up and cups your cheek. Instantly, your fins cant down..._  
>  \- Art by butthulu
> 
>  
> 
>  _The sea had wrapped around the two of you, a silent benediction, a cool blessing, and you'd cut through the water faster than any ship could, Eridan held tight in your arms..._  
>  \- Art by D4gm4rs


	2. Interlude

He's true to his word, at least.

About fifteen minutes after someone settled you into the cell, someone  _else_  showed up, with your little pile from diving in a baggie, proving that he hadn't even waited for you to be delivered to your newest "room" before hurrying off to try and make it seem a little less like a prison. You'll give him points for that, along with all the rest of, "everyone here cares" attitude that seems to work on lonely seadwellers so well.

You're not going to give him points for giving in so easily, though.

And you're taking some away for petty reasons—even if technically you should be giving them back—because of all the someone elses he could've sent, he _had_ to send Eridan Fucking Ampora.

 

Eridan won't even look you in the eyes as he drops the bag onto the little table your spacious prison cell slash room has been furnished with, and you only know this because of your excellent peripheral vision: you're busy staring up at the ceiling, and can't seem to find the time to meet his eyes.

"You're to take dinner in a different place tonight," he says, still not looking at you, as he methodically empties the bag out onto your table. If you didn't know any better, you would say he's hesitating to leave your room, for whatever reason. "Someone'll be by to pick you up at the appropriate time."

"Okay," you say, and try not to think about how rough your voice is, from emotions you've had to play at, from the disuse you'd once told him of.

He's gotten faster, he's gotten smarter, and above all, he's gotten  _stronger_ —these are your excuses for the reason your instincts barely kicked in, the reason you barely had time to roll off the bed into a fighting stance before he'd slammed your back against the wall. "I know what you are, Feferi," he says, and his eyes have finally filled in; they burn violet with no such restraint. "I know who you are, I know what she made you to be, an' I'm not goin' to let you hurt them. They're good fuckin' people, an' I  _will_ kill you myself before I let you become even a hint of a threat."

You make a strangled noise, and his grip on your throat tightens—dying is messy, you're not a fan, but it might make things easier, here—and then he releases you, and you're left staring at him.

He hadn't even gone for you hard enough to bruise.

"I'm not goin' to let you hurt them," he repeats, and his eyes burn no less bright this time around. "But if you mean what you say, if you  _meant_  your promises, if you're honestly, genuinely here lookin' for a way out— _finally_  tryin' to get out—then…"

"Eridan—"

"Then I'll help," he promises, all in a rush, and it fucking  _hurts_. You hadn't wanted to believe that was still there beneath the surface, you'd wanted to be sure he'd hardened his heart against all such eventualities, you'd wanted to  _know_ he'd grown up too much for you to be a threat. "I meant it then, Fef, an' I mean it now, I can help, I can keep you safe—"

"Eridan," you say, and your voice is as gentle now as you were then. "Don't."

"Last time you told me not to do anythin', I listened," he says, and the violet fire burning in his eyes threatens to swallow the both of you whole. "I won't make that same mistake again."

He will, and you'll help him: it's the only way you know to save him. "You know better than anyone else here who and what I am. Did you so easily forget, Eridan?"

Even that doesn't make him look away: "I missed you."

It's like a knife to the gut, and you turn your back on him, for lack of a better thing to say.

"Fef," he says, and you snarl without even looking at him, claws cutting into your palms. "There are good people here, Fef. I know that kinda shit matters to you more than you like to let on."

"Go. Away."

 

Your fins flicker, picking up the minute details of his movements in your room—and when he finally turns away and closes the door after him, you don't even need them to tell. Probably a good thing, that, given that they fold in against your head, tucking back underneath your hair, and you drop onto the bed to stare at the ceiling for a good long while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _...you barely had time to roll off the bed into a fighting stance before he'd slammed your back against the wall..._  
>  \- Art by D4gm4rs


	3. Chapter 3

Karkat Vantas is one of the most stubborn people you've ever met.

 

Dark and early next night he's at your new "room", carrying a tray full of food. You wonder if he'd picked Eridan's brains for the scattered amount of information that the violet had on you, with regards to favorites, or if he's just taking guesses based on what he knows of seadweller biology. After Eridan had left, you hadn't thought you'd sleep, but the insistent, shouty knocking—even when he  _knocks_  he seems shouty—had pulled you back to waking, meaning that you'd probably passed out at one point or another.

Your theory's further proved when he looks you over and raises an eyebrow, wearing an expression caught somewhere between sympathetic and amused. "You look like shit, Peixes."

"Is there any polite response to that?" You're tempted to go with a very impolite one, but this is his secret base, and he probably has at least fifty people he could order to kill you, if he felt like it. Shit sucks, life goes on. While you're stuck here, you're going to lean more into philosophical.

Only, Karkat Vantas, rebel, heretic,  _mutant_ —looks absolutely nonplussed. "I mean, you could flip me off. Snarky comment? Rude aspersions cast upon my honor, my lusus, my moobeast—"

"...if that was a joke, I don't get it." He's going to be really fun to deal with when he realizes how much pop culture you've missed out on. Then you pause, replaying his words in your head. "Are people in your own rebellion usually rude to you?"

"Sure. Everyone drags on everyone else all the time, it's like the regular Imperial army only you don't die if you say the wrong shit to the wrong guy." The pitying, sympathetic look makes its appearance again, and you raise an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"How often do trolls misread your signals and solicit you in a conciliatory fashion, Vantas?" He  _immediately_ goes red, all the way from solid cheekbones to pointed ear tips, and you smirk. "Yeah, you kind of come across as very much the pale ho."

"You can't claim to not understand key references to fine cinema like Troll Mulan and yet manage to make jokes like 'pale ho' in the same breath," he says, the fluster only adding hilarity to his attempt at glaring you down.

You shrug, in reply, a dismissive action that has him puffing up. Prideful Vantas, Angry Vantas, anything but  _Caring_ Vantas, is a lot easier to deal with. When it comes to manipulation, everyone has their preferences for type. "I'm only taught what S)(e believes is necessary for assignments. If she didn't think something was necessary, I wouldn't watch it. I'm guessing she didn't think Troll Mulan was necessary, and therefore, I did not watch it."

"And you never ever broke her rules, huh? Not even a little bit?" Tempting as it is, you're not going to tell him that it feels like amateur hour in here. You're not going to say that you know he's baiting you, you're not even going to hint that you know he wants you to talk about Eridan more, help him find sympathetic, common ground.

"There were occasions where I failed to meet the requirements she set for me, yes," you say, looking him in the eyes. "When that happened, I was punished as she saw fit, and given instruction to insure that a second slip would not occur. I did not enjoy it much."

Vantas' eyes soften, and you fight the pressing urge to roll yours. "I promise it's not like that here, Feferi," he says, and you decide on a nod. Nice and neutral. Nothing else for him to grab on to, nothing else for you to give away. "We'll work with you, and we don't want to force the trolls who join our merry little band of traitors to, you know. Do shit that makes them miserable and hurts them."

 

The naivety is absolutely astounding. You politely look skeptical, and allow him room to elaborate.

 

"Uh—I mean, if they're signing up to fight, then—look, we're not wrapping anyone in fucking, bleatbeast wool and shit, but—there's a level of, if we can do something small to make you happier, you're likely to be a better soldier, and more efficient and effective?" He almost seems like he's trying to prove his methods to you, and you'd be more amused if you weren't so struck by the fact that, for a few trolls at least, they'd proven to be devastatingly effective.

Meanwhile, he's still looking at you, and it's rather reminiscent of a very hopeful puppy that's not sure which way the tennis ball is going to be thrown. You decide to lob it, nice and low: "It sounds like you work very hard to make trolls happy, then."

"Yeah," Vantas says, something like relief in his very expressive eyes—and face, and voice, and body. This kid couldn't keep a secret if it would save his life, and given that he's probably had to, you're not sure how he's gotten this far. "Yeah, we do. So—what can we do to make you happy?"

"I—"

"Other than, you know," he continues over you, as if you hadn't started speaking at all, as if his all-too expressive eyes hadn't suddenly turned hard and cold, "the bare minimum of  _not_  torturing you for what we deem to be a 'failure'. Or, how did you say it again,  _reprimanding_ you for, what was it, saving someone's life?"

You draw yourself in and up, tension showing easily, and somehow manage not to roll your eyes at the way he clearly seems to assume this is indicative of some victory for him. If it'll keep him off your back for a while longer, you'll give him that much to work with. "I said I didn't want to talk about it."

"You haven't said that to me, I think. Or did I miss that one?" From the smirk he's giving you, you're reasonably sure that he would be a terrifying kismesis, in several excellent ways. Pity you won't have an opportunity to find out. "Or perhaps you assumed that we'd drop the topic completely rather than, I don't know,  _upset_ you."

"I've told several other people that I'm not...interested, in talking about what's happened to me. I assumed that got back to you, if I haven't told you personally. I don't—I'm not sure who knows what. This is me guessing." Your hands curl into fists in your lap, and you stare down at them. Losing a visual on his reactions is worth building an image in his mind, and you've got your fins to pick up a little bit of the slack. "If you want me to talk, I can suggest several ways to get me to talk. They tend to be quite effective."

"...we're not planning to torture you, Feferi. That falls under the 'last resort' category of use, and then it's meant to be strictly 'for enemies' only." There's a level of disgust in his voice that you're reasonably sure isn't feigned. It's another lever to pull on, but you'll have to be careful here. One of the leaders of the rebellion definitely seems like the last man to cross, but more than that, you need him to think that whatever he's selling has a chance on working on someone like you.

"It would be quicker and more effective," you offer, finally looking up at him. "...theoretically, I mean. I've been trained in resisting torture, which might reduce its effectiveness and efficiency, somewhat. Also, I'm used to it, which...maybe not torture, then."

He sighs, rubbing his temples. You're reasonably sure the bags under his eyes aren't all from daymares. "If you were anyone else, I'd have you court martialed for sounding that edgy during an interview, Peixes, but honestly your life sounded fucked up enough as it is  _before_  I met you that I'm not even a little bit surprised."

You don't respond—you lace your hands together, and lean back in your chair, and let the silence reign until he inhales deep enough that you know he's about to speak. "I stuck around."

"—what?"

"After I left. After E—Ampora, asked me to stay."

"...that's not possible, he said—"

"Not...with him. In the waters around where I'd dropped him off. I stuck around for a little while after. Keeping an eye on things I guess. Making sure he'd...gotten back okay. That he was settling in okay. Being kidnapped can be hard on the psyche." It's easier to keep your eyes on the ceiling when you're spilling secrets that have never seen surface-side before. "Sometimes I thought about letting him catch me. Or his Ancestor. Someone."

"Feferi—"

"Of course, when I actually did cave and made myself findable, some seadweller tried to kill me." You look at him again now, empty and cold, the way you've learned to show yourself: trolls prefer to think of you as full of whatever best suits their mental picture. "So I turned tail and swam all the way back to my own Ancestor's side. She took Ampora's survival poorly, even if she didn't notice the delay. Time is less important to her than you might think."

This is enough of a truth that it makes you seem valuable, but nothing more than a confirmation of what they may have guessed. You're willing to seem helpful, if it helps you get further towards what you want. You're willing to seem to be a lot of things.

"You can come in now," he says quietly, and your fins flick. As tempted as you are to pretend to be startled, it's a little too obvious what your situation is to pull that off. You are the potential betrayer, the rogue tyrian that they have every reason to think they can convert and absolutely no reason to trust.

 

But even so, you had still thought it would be just a little too cruel of Karkat to have Eridan Ampora be the one assigned to listen in.

Even if he'd known that it would give him an advantage. Even if Eridan Ampora was the closest thing he had to an expert on you. You'd  _known_ that Karkat would try steering you towards emotional moments and reasons to hate the Empire, and you had known that Eridan would come up, and you had known—you had  _assumed_ —that Karkat Vantas would be a little too kind to let one of his best generals get hurt like that.

 

Seems like you'd assumed very, very wrong.

Eridan slips into the room: he's hidden by Sollux's lanky form at first, then you can see the edge of a sharp horn, the downward set of perfectly violet fins. If you were still the troll who pulled scared guppies out of scary holes in bad places, you would turn on Karkat and snarl; you are the weapon who pretends to have a shred of that troll left in her and you turn towards Karkat with your mouth pulled into a snarl—and then check the motion, your expression melting back into that solid calm of the trained assassin.

It is what they expect from you, and it is what they want you to give. You are nothing if not courteous.

"Down, girl," Captor says, then snickers to himself. You're not entirely surprised that he's the type of guy to laugh at his own jokes. From the way the other two roll their eyes, it's a common enough occurrence.

 

You do not miss the fact that his shitty comment has eased some of the tension in Eridan's shoulders, as much as you want to miss that fact. You would prefer to miss a lot of the information that you've been trained to pick up and remember.

You also do not miss the fact that Eridan keeps glancing at you, every so often, like he's trying to confirm what you've said on the sight of you alone.

"Is this really necessary?" Your voice is quiet, your tone is flat. Vantas doesn't seem to care much; he leans back in his chair and kicks his feet up onto the table. Instead of rising to the bait, you fold your hands together in your lap and wait for him to continue on, to redirect, to try pulling you under his oh-so-warm wing for the hundredth time.

But this time, he seems content to out wait you. You're left in total silence, watching him and waiting, and the other guys are silent too. Minutes stretch out longer, and you wonder who among you will be the first to break down—silence doesn't suit Ampora well, and Captor's already fidgeting. You're giving yourself points for being right about Karkat Vantas' abilities in the region of blackrom.

"Was that another lie?"

Your money had been on Eridan, and it seems your guess was good. His words immediately pull your attention over, and you look at him, really look at him, as if you're trying to unravel the riddle and mystery and confusion your memories have wrapped him up in.

He looks back at you like he's hardly daring to hope.

"No," you say, and you watch that  _something_  he carries around just a few inches back behind his ribcage bloom outward, spreading like a king tide. "It wasn't a lie. I stuck around, someone tried to do my Ancestor a favor, and I bolted and never looked back."

"Fef—"

If you were a better person, you might have taken a moment to debate crushing him like this. You're not. You don't. "It was the last time I ever bothered to believe things could be different for me. My Ancestor finished the job of completely disabusing me of that notion, even if the other troll couldn't."

Grey going pale is not a good look, but you keep your gaze steady, locked on Eridan Ampora, all the same. He meets your eyes, and stares, tries to gasp words out, and when he fails, you finally let yourself look away. No sense in pushing the punishment when you've already gotten what you wanted, no reason to keep hammering the point home when you can see him drowning on dry land. He'd wanted to be a hero for you, he'd wanted to change the tides that drove you, and he'd only succeeded in driving you further away.

It was a enough to make a troll feel guilty the rest of their nights; it was enough to stay a hand that might otherwise deliver the execution blow.

Good. Perfect. Exactly what you were after.

 

"It's kinda cute how she thinks she's manipulating us." Your attention turns to Captor, who gives you a smile that puts you in mind of those GrubTube feeds you watched, with the teachers and teachers' pets. It's like he's praising you for being a particularly promising student, or like you've somehow managed to amuse him with a clever trick. You're pretty sure you're annoyed by this, but also, you're pretty sure he's kind of a dick.

Even more so, you're a little worried that you might think he's a little bit funny, and that's probably the end of the world as you know it.

"Which part was the manipulation?" Your tone is genuinely curious, and it's easy to hit those right notes, because you are genuinely curious. Which part? What can you do to make your next assignment better? How exactly are people spotting your failures and flaws?

How can you be good enough that your Ancestor will finally let you go?

"Oh, no, I have absolutely no doubts whatsoever that all of that actually happened to you, but the way you're telling your charming little happy bloodline stories is absolutely a hundred percent aimed at emotionally destroying Ampora, so like, props there." He flashes you a lopsided quirk of a grin, and you don't respond, patiently waiting. "Huh, okay, charm doesn't work either, make a note of that KK—basically, you're out to sow doubt and cause as much damage to ED as possible. Am I right?"

There are several ways you could take this, but you choose the simplest: "I don't know why it's surprising that I'd hold a grudge against someone who hurt me like that."

"That's really fucking twisted, you know." This is Karkat, who keeps his tone conversational, as he looks you over. You're pretty sure you're being measured against something, someone, and you're pretty sure that you're not quite matching up. "The dude tried to offer you an out, if you'd taken it when he  _first_ offered, none of that would've happened to you."

Behind his back, you can see Eridan flinch, Sollux wince, and you wonder if either of them knew he'd go in for blaming you like that. No matter. Your fins dip down, your eyes drop to the ground: "I know. I was...reminded that it was my fault, later on. I'll behave from here on out, sir."

You doubt he'll believe it. But that's okay. It only needs to be true for a little while longer.

 

"Reminded how?" This is Eridan, and his voice is sharp—you twist your hands into your outfit, staring down at the ground, ignoring the way color drains out of the world. "Feferi. Reminded. How."

"I really don't want to talk about it," you say, soft as you can. "I don't want to make it worse. I really do not want to make this any worse."

"And you think telling ED what your absolutely insane bitch of an Ancestor did to you after you saved his fine twunk ass is going to—wait, pardon me, it was a fine  _twink_  ass at the time—going to change our perception of you in any way at all?" Captor seems amused, and skeptical, all at once, and you wonder if he practices that in a mirror as you curl your hands into your shirt. Not your shirt. Someone else's shirt. Nothing is yours. "Well?"

But before you have to force yourself to answer, Eridan sets a hand on his shoulder, and you can almost feel the weight behind that serious look in his eyes. He, of course, knows what might have happened. He knows what seadwellers do to each other, what your Ancestor is capable of. "It might be a good idea to take this in a different direction, aye?"

"Nope," Karkat says, looking you over. "I want to know what happened."

"I heal," you say. The words spill out of you: you'd once worked out how you would tell this story if you ever had to garner sympathy, or if you ever had turn against your Ancestor. Things are not going as you had planned; this is not working out as you'd rehearsed it to. Your eyes close for a moment, and then you find a thread to continue along. "I can heal. Myself. Others. I don't know if Erid—if Ampora has mentioned it, or if your records show that fact, but I can, and I have. It means I can take a lot more damage than anyone else can, save my Ancestor, and it means that I can...come back, from certain things."

"Peixes." Eridan's voice snaps like winter ice through ship's wood, a warning in every inch of its crack. You ignore it, much as you've learned to ignore everything else deemed to be for your own safety, for your own good—these quantifiers are seldom true; they harm more than they could ever even pretend to help.

"She'd never kill me directly, but torture's on the table," you say. "She can't kill me directly until the challenge, but she can...she can let me die. Or make me die."

They're staring at you, all three of them, rapt attention and a sickened kind of awe. You want to ask them to stop, you want to run away and never talk about any of this ever again. "I'll heal. Slowly. After it. Wake up slowly. Remember what happened. If she's really mad she waits until I'm fully aware and mostly healed, and then she does it all over again, until she's not mad any more."

Even Eridan, who's closest to the throne, who knows more of what your Ancestor is capable of, looks ready to throw up. You're reasonably sure Dualscar would have filled him in on )(er methodology, but maybe you misjudged him, or maybe Eridan's just got that weak a stomach. You'd rather not know. "Can we be done now?"

Karkat startles, and gives the other two a guilty look, first reciprocated by Eridan and second, met with the cold-edged blankness of someone who played your games. Sollux is the one you would be most worried about, if Vantas hadn't spend the entire interview proving himself to be a most formidable foe. "Sure," Vantas says, and shoves himself up. At some point between him shouting loud enough to wake the dead—or pull you up out of sleep, as the case may be—you vaguely remember sitting down in a chair. Had the table always been there? How much sleep had you been allowed to have before they'd gotten started on the question and answer games? "Get some rest, okay?"

Ah. Not much, you're guessing, by the sympathetic tone Karkat takes, by the flicker of guilt you see in Eridan's eyes. They'd wanted you off-balance, but they'd gone too far in the process, doing stupid enough shit that it ruined their own chances of breaking you down properly. Well, you were never one to blame an enemy for a failure, and you were even less of one to assume your own win before it had been proven true. Captor's watchful gaze, as the other two shuffled guiltily out, was enough to remind you that you were still working from the ground up, fighting from your back.

At least you were used to it.

 

* * *

 

 Nights slipped into each other with all the quiet grace of a true-blooded finfolk taking a moonlight pool. You let them run past you, through your hands and into something entirely more meaningless. If your Ancestor had wanted you back, you would know by now. From what you can guess, she's hoping you're caught somewhere that will kill you for good, and unless you've missed your other guess, she's not exactly wrong.

You have further interviews, and your interviewees are far more cautious, far more tactful, the next few times around. You manage discussions, half a debate, and an actual conversation with Eridan that flows and halts in fitful bursts, starts and stops of actual connection more than anything else.

Really, you can't ask for anything better than that, and really, it's already been enough to make a decent start. You're pretty sure you can make this work for you, just as you've made every other shit situation you've been in work for you before.

 

You can make this work. You can make it out.

 

You're going to be...fine.

**Author's Note:**

> THANK GOODNESS EVERYTHING IS POSTED. I am....dead, dying, and also incredibly relieved. Thank you to D4gm4rs and butthulu, for all the amazing artwork they did for this, and to ende, for being a tireless hypeman the entire time.
> 
> @ all of you reading this? The next part's waiting right around the corner...


End file.
